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Y. Lev. 34 Israelite masonry was laid in rows, and towers were citadels within cities (Jg. 46ff), though David's tower is otherwise unknown. Towers were hung about with shields on occasions of celebration (Ezek. 11; 1 34 The Song of Fourteen Songs Mace. 57), such as the king's wedding day. ). The simile arises then from the tiers of necklaces with which the princess is adorned; Gerleman cites Egyptian illustrations as parallels, in which women wear up to ten necklaces. The masonry courses, with the shields hung down at varying heights, look like the ropes of jewels round her neck.

Flowers deck the earth, birdsong the air; The turtledove coos in our land; The green figs' ripening is at hand; The vines their scented blossoms bear. Rise! Come, my fair! My dove, take flight! In clefts of rock and covert sheer, Your sight I'll see, your voice I'll hear— For sweet your voice, and fair your sight. ' Princess Oh! I am my love's, and he is mine, Who feeds in lily-banks! Till dawn Its breezes blow, and shadows flee, Come back, be a gazelle, love, be Upon the cloven hills a fawn! Song 3: The Courtship 23 To be an addition to a harem the size of Solomon's does not mean that one can automatically expect any attention: the sequence expresses the princess's delight that the king is actually courting her.

12), and are said to be the work of an artist-workman. ' sor comes twice elsewhere in the Bible: it means a navel-string at Ezek. 4, and some inner part of a man (par. 'bones') at Prov. 8. , or any other Semitic language, while sirr(i) in Arabic means 'secret', and is used for venereal (diseases). It may be an equivalent for me'im in Prov. 3, and, as Lys says about Ezek. 16, the navel-string goes to the womb as well as the navel. This is clearly the meaning here. The entrance to the womb is shaped like a rounded cup, the vagina being at first like the thin stem, and then broadening out into a hemispherical bowl round the cervix ('pomegranate').